THE GEOLOGIST. 



AUGUST, 1861. 



SUGGESTIONS OX THE PRACTICAL UTILITY OF A 

 COMBINATION OF GEOLOGICAL SOCIETIES. 



By the Editoe. 



We all know that whatever we do to do well we must do earnestly. 

 It is not a thing taken in hand now and then, by fits and starts, that 

 ever reaches the perfection necessary to give it prominence and raise 

 it above things ordinary. 



A London society, simply because it is a London society, is not 

 therefore composed of more talent than a provincial society ; nor, if 

 it be, is that talent necessarily more effectually applied than it would 

 be by any other society whatever. But as the metropolis is the centre 

 and focus of the English ordinary population, so we think its learned 

 societies ought to be the centres and foci of all the provincial 

 societies. By this we do not advocate that the London societies 

 should at all control the actions of any of the other societies ; but we 

 can not but think that the greatest good would arise from a com- 

 bination of all the provincial Geological Societies and Field Clubs 

 with that which ought to be their natural head — the London Geolo- 

 gists' Association. If the Geological Society itself could be made 

 the great centre of attraction, so much the better ; but the exclusive 

 VOL. iv. 2 L 



